BEIJING / Reuters Lashing winds, high waves and toxic gases are hindering dozens of rescue boats struggling to locate missing sailors from a stricken oil tanker in the East China Sea and to extinguish a fire that has burned for the past three days on the ship. The poor conditions, with strong winds, rain and waves as high as 3 ...

Bloomberg Brazil’s combination of political polarization and passion for social media offers fertile ground for fake news in the run-up to this year’s elections, leading fact checkers have warned. Claire Wardle, a Harvard fellow and the director of an organization that coordinated fact-checking efforts during the French and UK elections, said political division combined with widespread use of WhatsApp, a ...

WASHINGTON / Reuters US Vice President Mike Pence will visit Egypt, Jordan and Israel from January 20 to 23, the White House said, embarking on a tour originally planned for last month after President Donald Trump recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Pence will hold talks with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Jordan’s King Abdullah and Israeli Prime Minister ...

US equities responded to the Trump presidency with euphoria. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 25 percent in 2017, becoming one of the best-performing global asset classes. It was a different story with US Treasuries: The yield on 10-year notes fell slightly from 2.44 percent at the end of 2016 to close 2017 at 2.41 percent. And the spread in ...

As 2018 gets underway, China seems to be on top again. The yuan has strengthened 6.8 percent against the dollar over the past 12 months and foreign-exchange reserves are growing. Not so fast. Remember November 2015, when the International Monetary Fund — with some fanfare — agreed to add the yuan to its prestigious special drawing rights currency basket. Talk ...

Five events from the previous year hold clues to what lies ahead for energy, technology and finance. Electric buses just keep on going: The southern Chinese city of Shenzhen has amassed a total of 16,359 electric buses, making its fleet bigger than the six largest North American combustion-bus fleets. Cities keep a close eye on their vehicle fleets: The Lion ...

Can a relatively low-tax country run a high-quality, taxpayer-funded health service that’s free to all? Britain’s National Health Service suggests the answer is no. The NHS is good at some things but bad, bordering on disastrous, at others. Its great virtue is truly universal coverage, no questions asked — and by international standards, the system is also cheap to run. ...

The opening scene of “The Karate Kid” left a big impression on me. A struggling, working-class single mom in New Jersey packs her family and all of her worldly possessions into a green station wagon and heads west to California in search of a better life. As a child who had only ever known one town, I was astonished by ...

Spotify AB will soon shine a bright light on just how big the holes are in our capital markets. Far more than just bankers should take note. Sometime, reportedly by the end of March, shares of the streaming music service will start trading for the first time. The deal, a direct listing, has received attention for some time because it’s ...

Senator Bernie Sanders says it’s worth following the example of ‘our brothers and sisters in Iceland’ who last year passed the world’s most demanding law on equal pay for men and women. But the legislation, which took effect on January 1, could end up hurting women without some added measures. Even ultra-egalitarian Iceland isn’t ready to take them. No other ...